यो वर्षको झकास पुरस्कार भारतीय साहित्यकार राईलाई

पुरस्कार ग्रहर्ण गर्दै साहित्यकार राई (सौजन्य: प्रकाश आङ्दाम्बे)

साहित्यप्रेमी भूटानी युवाहरूबाट गठित झकास समूहले वार्षिक रूपमा प्रदान गर्दै आएको यो वर्षको ‘झकास अन्तराष्ट्रिय पुरस्कार’ भारतीय साहित्यकार विमल राईलाई प्रदान गरेको छ ।

पुरस्कार गत आइतबार झापाको दमकमा आयोजना गरिएको एउटा कार्यक्रममाझ साहित्यकार गणेश रसिक, संगीतकार मणीकमल क्षेत्री र गीतकार एलपी जोसीबाट संयुक्त रूपमा साहित्यकार राईलाई प्रदान गरिएको हो ।

ताम्रपत्र र १६ हजार रूपैयाँको सो पुरस्कार सन् २०१० बाट झकास समूहले प्रदान गर्दै आएको छ । उक्त पुरस्कारबाट साहित्यकारहरू याम थुलुङ र प्रकाश आङ्दाम्वे क्रमश सन् २०१० र २०११ मा सम्मानित भइसकेका छन् ।
“तपाईहरूको माया मात्र भए पुग्छ, मलाई नगद रकमको कुनै आवश्यकता छैन,” भन्दै राईले आफूले पाएको १६ हजार रूपैयाँ सृजनशील कामका लागि झकास समूहलाई नै फिर्ता गरेका थिए ।

Source:BNS.com

Safety management in camps

By: H.K. Dahal

To keep camp self depended in case of security, exiled Bhutanese have formed Camp Management Committee (CMC) and Camp Welfare Team (CWT). Those committee and team have very significant role to keep camp peace and make exiled Bhutanese aware of undesired problems.

Armed Police Force(APF) post of Sanischare. Photo: Durga Pokhrel

As exiled Bhutanese population was divided into seven different camps before few years back; but now there are only formally four camps left due to merging of camps viz: Beldangi-I, Beldangi-II, Beldangi-II Extension and Sanischare. Again population in each camps are managed into many sectors named A,B,C…Additionally, sectors are again divided into four units 1,2,3,4(But in Sanischare there are five units in each sector).

To run the camps efficiently, refugees used to elect two (male and female) leaders from each unit. After that, two leaders from each unit do elect two sector heads from each sector. All unit leaders and sector heads do elect various posts for CMC and CWT. Mainly Camp Secretary (head of CMC) and chief of CWT have vital role to lead the camps to keep camp safe and peace.

As there are four camps, in spite of four camp secretaries mainly there are only two camp secretaries. There is only one full camp secretary and two deputy in Beldangi (I, II and II Extn.) where as there is one camp secretary and one deputy in Sanischare.

Really these types of systems are unavailable in other refugee camps. CMC and CWT have very great role to keep camp safe and peace. Additionally there are three Armed Police Force (APF) posts in Bhutanese refugee camps. Where there is two APF post in Beldangi and there is one APF post in Sanischare. APF is kept for security of refugees by Nepal Government since about 17 years back. It keeps good relation with CMC and CWT to keep well security of camp.

Call for Action: the importance of free Bhutanese journalism in Nepal

A couple of days ago I wrote an article on this website to advocate the role of journalism for the Bhutanese community in exile. I did that after a fire incident hit the Beldangi 2 refugee camp nearDamak in the Jhapa district of Nepal. The whole situation concerning information flow of the events proved the importance of adequate and independent journalism in the region.

Yesterday I received further information on the challenging situation the free journalists focussing on the Bhutanese refugees / exiles are. For many years now they have been covering the situation and major events for this large group of people with almost no financial means. On their own pockets and with little support from abroad. And because these journalists are refugees themselves they have to be careful as they are not issued formal journalists status in Nepal. Refugees are not allowed to do paid work outside the refugee camps.

Their challenges are not only financial. Due to the nature of long term refuge in camps (more than 20 years now) it is only logical that tensions rise frequently inside the refugee community inside the camps and the Nepalese communities around these camps and in nearby villages. Working as a journalist coming from the refugee community means that one has to toe the line quite often. Some of these men (unfortunately only men are doing this work) are threatened or even abused. The work can easily become from relaxed to difficult to dangerous. Only their perseverance and conviction that free journalism is the essence of a free peoples has been and still is keeping them active.

Royal Pardon vs Social Media

By Vidhyapati Mishra

Just a month after amendment of Tobacco Control Act 2010 by the Parliament, King Jigme Khesar has exercised a prerogative to release 16 persons convicted of tobacco smuggling.

The first convicted monk student Sonam Tshering

However, many have already started commenting that both government and the King must have understood the role of media and social network groups against tobacco law. Thanks to “Amend the Tobacco Control Act” group in the Facebook for leading the social protest.

Definitely, Prime Minister Jigmi Y Thinley and King Khesar got an opportunity to accept that no people can respect an act that has been termed as “draconian” by parliamentarians including the Opposition Leader (OL).

The so-called democratic constitution that has placed the King above it allows him to grant amnesty to prisoners under Article 2, Section 16 (C). This provision states, “The Druk Gyalpo, in exercise of His Royal prerogatives, may grant amnesty, pardon and reduction of sentences”.

The royal amnesty has also set the first convicted monk student Sonam Tshering free.

Left in a limbo

Vidhyapati Mishra’s opinion piece published by The Kathmandu Post.

For over two decades, Nepal has been hosting thousands of Bhutanese nationals, who were forcefully evicted from the country in early 1990s. However, it was only in 2006 that the Government of Nepal agreed to verify and issue them refugee identity cards. The joint verification team comprising representatives from the government and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) conducted official registration between 2006 to 2008 for issuing photo identity cards for over 100,000 Bhutanese citizens, languishing in UN-managed refugee camps in Jhapa and Morang. One of the achievements of the official registration is the ongoing third country resettlement. Nearly 60,000 refugees registered have already left for various eight countries in the West to begin a new life. The International Organization for Migration and UNHCR are processing around 50,000 refugees for relocation.

Initially, both the government and UNHCR were convinced that the registration process would grant refugee status to all asylum seekers from Bhutan, including Indian and Nepali women married to refugees in camps. But, it was not to be. Some individuals, who missed the official counting intentionally or otherwise, are now struggling to get their status recognised by the government. These include new arrivals from Bhutan, who were expelled recently from the country or released from jails. Now, they have come to the refugee camps to join their family members and friends. The local authority even claims that the ongoing resettlement process has lured some of them and this is why they left the country or married their loved ones from Nepal and India. It might be true that people can be attracted towards resettling in developed countries through marriage chains, but to dare to leave the country to become a refugee for this is unconvincing. It is the right of all asylum seekers to get their status defined so that they don’t remain stateless, and even qualify for any solution of the refugee issue, including third country resettlement and dignified repatriation to the homeland.

About Internet Media

By: H.K. Dahal

Media mirrors society. Through free access to information and the exchange of opinions, media empowers citizens to make free choice. Societies depend on this flow of information to keep it moving in the right direction. We have seen how modern societies rely so much  more on the media and how, in comparison, communities such as ours’ know so much less.

We can use internet  as media. We can unleash the power of internet in shaping the future of our community.

The internet media is the fastest online means to interlink with others. Internet media includes forums, blogs, podcasts, pictures and video, email, instant messaging, discussion boards, chat rooms, Google Groups, Wikipedia, Search engines and a host of social networking sites and tools including Myspace, Facebook, youtube, Twitter etc.

You do not need to be a journalist to be able to inform people via the internet. It is increasingly accessible and it helps connect people from different parts of the world at minimum expense. A few  websites, which Bhutanese journalists in exile have launched, have proven this point. These  websites are growi9ng in popularity despite being new and young.

We can use the power of internet to connect inform and educate audience. The internet will be a great instrument in thread9ng our communities, especially as they settle in different parts of the world. Whether it is used as a vehicle of communication or as a platform for discovering each other, exchanging information or exploring our history,  the internet stands out above any other form of mass communication. Internet forums can also be used for initiating, enabling dialogue and bringing together people of different political views to meet, discuss, and explore solutions.

Photo essay: refugees from Bhutan

 

Anna Husarska

Born in Bhutan, a Himalayan country of less than a million inhabitants, this woman will probably never again see her homeland; this photo was taken in one of the seven refugee camps in the southeast of Nepal where over a 100.000 Bhutanese of Nepalese origin – like her- have lived since the early 1990s.

This is when the king of Bhutan introduced a very harsh new citizenship law, which excluded the majority of the Bhutanese of Nepalese origin (called Lhotshampas, or “people of the south”) no matter how many proofs of citizenship they had. Most of them fled or were forced out.

Photo: Bhutanese refugees featured

Bhutanese refugee women look out from their bamboo hut at The Beldangi II Refugee Camp some 300 kms southeast of Kathmandu on Oct. 6, 2009. Thousands of Bhutanese refugees have left the camps in eastern Nepal, where they languished for almost two decades, under a United Nations resettlement program. (Prakash Mathema/AFP/Getty Images)

Posted by: H.K. Dahal

Bhutanese Refugee Empowerment

The population in Bhutan mainly consists of two communities: the Drukpas and the Lhotshampas. Bhutanese rulers forced the Lhotshampas, minority ethnic Nepalis from Southern Bhutan, to adhere to unusual regulations in order to create a homogenous culture across the nation. The unfair treatment included compelling them to wear traditional clothing, stripping them of their citizenship, and forcing them into exile. Nepali language classes and Hindu schools were also terminated with the intention that this would put an end to their customs and beliefs. In 1985, conflict between these two communities resulted in a mass exodus of Lhotshampas to Nepal. These Bhutanese refugees in Nepal were considered “illegal immigrants” despite their Nepali origins. Until 1994, more than 110,000 Lhotshampas took refuge in seven United Nations-administered camps in Nepal living in very poor conditions. Initially, the refugee population aided in developing an infrastructure prioritizing education and the standard of living, however, as more and more refugees sought shelter in these camps, the situation gradually worsened. Donations from around the world decreased and the educated youth found jobs outside of the camps. The camps would not serve as a permanent solution to the growing number of Bhutanese refugees in Nepal.

Real sense of human rights is absent

This was the last interview that the BNS conducted with late R.K.Dorji. Coinciding the 62nd Human Rights Day, BNS Executive Editor TP Mishra had talked to Dorji  on various contemporary issues including the situation of human rights in Bhutan. The interview was published in the BNS on Dec 9, 2010. Excerpts:

Late R.K. Dorji

BNS: How do you evaluate the ‘state of human rights’ in Bhutan especially aftermath of 2008 general election in the country? 
The real sense of human rights exists only on paper post 2008. The regime applies human rights discriminately. The human right is upheld if it pleases. However we have to admit slight lee way is granted in terms of freedom of press. The real sense of democracy is absent, so the real sense of human rights is also absent.

BNS: Why do you think Bhutan has been always successful in convincing the world communities that there is ‘improving situation’ of human rights and democracy despite the truth being the otherwise? 

A new generation is born in the 20-year-old Beldangi camp

Nearly half of the roughly 108,000 Bhutanese of Nepalese origin who fled to Nepal in the early 1990s have been resettled in third countries, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), and the seven camps (Now only six camps) they were living in are in the process of being consolidated into two.

A new generation is born in the 20-year-old Beldangi camp

Since late 2007, when a third-country resettlement programme was introduced, UNHCR has resettled 50,996 of the refugees, also known as Lhotsampas; 43,056 have been resettled in the USA alone. They fled Bhutan after the government stripped them of citizenship.

Due to a reduction in donor funds and to provide services more efficiently to the dwindling number of refugees, the Nepalese government and UNHCR have begun merging the camps into two – Beldangi in Jhapa District and Sanischare in Morang District. The plan is to complete the process by mid-2012.

“Refugees don’t necessarily feel comfortable losing half of the community, so it makes no sense to do business as usual,” Stephane Jaquemet, UNHCR country representative in Kathmandu, told IRIN.

Camps Beldangi I, Beldangi II, and Beldangi II Extension merged into Beldangi camp in January 2011, centralizing food distribution, health care and education.

Camp fire

The 4,600 refugees at Goldhap camp in eastern Jhapa, which closed in June 2011, were initially reluctant to leave, but after a fire in March which destroyed nearly 75 percent of the bamboo huts, they were left with no choice.

You can get more article about Bhutanese issues here:

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=93572

“At first, some of us had disagreements with relocation. The larger camps are more crowded and chaotic and more prone to crime,” Chiranjibi Rai, former camp secretary at Goldhap and a refugee now at the new Beldangi camp, said. “After our camp caught fire, there was too much dust and pollution. It was then that we demanded to move.”

The fire prompted UNHCR to move 678 families to the larger camps. Most families relocated to Beldangi, where some found themselves in unfinished, roofless huts.

Ten families, including Tal Man Rana and his wife and daughter, asked to be moved to Sanischare where their relatives live.

“Everything went smoothly during the transition,” Man Rana said. “Any complaints we had were temporary. If you talk about health, education, and infrastructure, we are totally dependent on what they give us. So wherever they take us, we have to go. And we accept this.”

Bhutanese refugees in Nepal frustrated by lack of progress

As the brooding monsoon clouds unleash torrents of rain on the newly-planted jewel-green rice fields and tea plantations of easternNepal, the prospects of repatriating over 100,000 Bhutanese refugees exiled for some 14 years seemed as mired in mud as the local water buffalo.

“We are like dead people,” said 47-year-old Bhutanese refugee Mohan* in Beldangi camp as he flicked a counter across a red talcum-dusted board in the popular sub-continental game, Carrom Board. Gathered around him under the thatch-roofed shelter were inquisitive children clutching school exercise books.

Some Bhutanese refugees elders killing their time by playing cards. Photo: H.K. Dahal

“It’s killing time only. All the time staying here, killing time. Our lives are doomed. We cannot go ahead with developing our future,” he added, pointing to the children who were being educated in the camp but had little chance of ever using their skills.

After 14 years without a single refugee returning toBhutan, tensions and frustrations are growing in the seven UNHCR-run refugee camps in easternNepal, which like many rural areas of the country, is affected by a Maoist insurgency.

Since 1993, the Nepalese and Bhutanese governments have been unsuccessfully negotiating repatriation on a bilateral basis. UNHCR has been excluded from the process, but the refugee agency has continually advocated for a long-lasting solution.

“We can’t keep them eternally in the camps. It’s inhuman and criminal to leave them there and it’s incumbent on all parties to put an end to this protracted situation,” said UNHCR’s Representative inNepal, Abraham Abraham.

“The problem has become political and has shifted from being a humanitarian problem, so there’s a need for a strong political solution,” he added.

‘Welcome to Beldangi’

By TP Mishra

Photographs are often more powerful than words to reflect certain things. They speak of the facts in an appealing way. Not to an exception, if you were a guest or an invitee to stop by a festival in South Carolina, USA recently, you could have gotten an opportunity to ‘see how life of a Bhutanese refugee is like’.

Some pictures as seen on one side of the hut, which are aimed at reflecting the life of Bhutanese refugees in Nepal. Photo: BNS

Based in Charlotte, North Carolina, the Carolina Refugee Resettlement Agency (CRRA) has resettled hundreds of refugees—mostly Burmese and Bhutanese, who come to the USA through resettlement program. Hundreds of Bhutanese refugees have begun their new lives in a new atmosphere with the help of CRRA, which not only relocates new arrivals but also help them out with several other immigration concerns including the Green Card applications.

In its recent endeavor to explore its activities within the locality, the CRRA, during a festival on September 27 in South Carolina, USA, tried seeking the attention of guests by ‘welcoming them to Beldangi camp’ based in Nepal.